Will Silicon Valley be powerless?

The lights remained on in Silicon Valley and the rest of California Tuesday

despite earlier warnings of a new round of blackouts. But blackouts are

projected for Wednesday and onward.

President Bush announced he is extending for two weeks an order from

President Clinton forcing power companies to sell energy to California, despite

the near bankruptcy of its two main power utility companies. Of the $400 million

California’s state government made available to buy emergency power supplies,

$200 million were consumed in just the first four days. Without a new influx of

state funds next week, the state will be unable to secure outside sources for

the 15,000 or so megawatts of power the state needs in addition to what it can

produce on its own.

The State has asked major power customers, such as IBM, which have their own

generators, to keep the generators running and feed the power into the

state-wide power grid to lessen dependency on outside sources.